Twin Peaks Q & A Part 2

Question from Christian Hartleben: In early 1991, ABC network executives placed Twin Peaks on hiatus. That decision all but ensured than the final six episodes would never be broadcast. “Josie in the drawer pull” would have been last image of Twin Peaks ever seen: no Season 2 finale in the Red Room; no Fire Walk With Me; and absolutely no Return. Learning of the hiatus, the Committee Opposed to the Offing of Peaks sprang into action, organizing a letter-writing campaign which saved our beloved series from that fate. We owe everything since then to the members of the C.O.O.P. movement.Now, in our time, we face an opportunity: To encourage the production of further Twin Peaks: how would you suggest that we demonstrate our love?

What kind of efforts do you think would make a positive impact on the prospects of green-lighting more Twin Peaks?

Answered by Andrew: The motto of this site since Day 1 has been to “Help keep the conversation alive”. That’s what we’re attempting to do now by putting out anywhere from 18 to 21 articles a week and that’s exactly what we plan to continue doing after all is said and done on September 3rd. That’s just the beginning though. Now’s the time for organization. There’s been a petition floating around as well as email addresses for Showtime executives but perhaps a more cohesive effort is called for? I think just as important as letting Showtime know how much we loved “The Return”, we need to let David Lynch and Mark Frost know how much we loved their work. We have this great big amazing community full of people who love Twin Peaks. A showing of solidarity is needed to properly display exactly how large and how appreciative we are. As for the best way to do that, well let’s just say we’re working on something……

Question from Deer Meadow Radio: How about anything you were certain was going to occur that still hasn’t? Most disappointing storyline? Characters that redeemed themselves since their early appearances?

Answered by Brien: The Palmer Family Interview that Lynch filmed for the Blu-ray release had me convinced that Sarah Palmer was going to have a moment of redemption in Season 3. As a sear herself, on some level she has to feel that she failed her daughter terribly. I also think it’s important that she’s still living in that same house, where BOB could come and go, and where Laura had hung the picture portal from Mrs Tremond. I’ve also been waiting for the Bookhouse Boys to be called into action, especially given hints from the Access Guide that they were performing yearly ceremonies to keep the evil in the woods at bay. I’m not so sure anymore if that’s going to happen, but I’m still holding out hope.

When Bad Cooper saw BOB in his reflection on the prison mirror, I was amazed and elated. It confirmed everything I had been thinking about that relationship and its dynamics. And then Part 8 came along and apparently gave BOB a retcon origin story, and turned him into some kind of physical bubble that could be surgically removed from someone’s body. This wasn’t just disappointing to me, it was practically offensive. Still, I’m trying to withhold judgment and waiting to see what happens.

If you mean from the original series until now, the obvious choice is Bobby. While he might not be living up to the full potential of his father’s vision for him, he has certainly turned himself around and his playing an instrumental role in executing Major Briggs’ plans.

If you mean within the new series, then I would have to go with Ray. When originally introduced Ray was just some scumbag hired hand with a smart mouth. But he alone has gotten the drop on Bad Cooper, and seems to have had at least some amount of understanding of the supernatural elements of what’s going on around him. I really wanted to know more about Ray, but it looks like his role is complete. Although, he did put on that ring..

Question from Diane podcast – ‘What is your favorite, but in your view ‘less obvious’ scene/sequence in the Return so far? Why?

Answered by Cheryl Lee Latter: For me, it is one of the first scenes of part one. It’s so long ago that no-one mentions them much anymore. I think that the first Sam and Tracey scenes will turn out to be highly telling once we know the whole story. Nobody seems to question how they know each other, even though they seem to only be vague acquaintances. How does she know where he works? He says they aren’t allowed to tell anyone the place exists, so it didn’t come up in some random coffee shop chat. Maybe she already works in the building. Tracey turns up with coffee every day in the hopes of being invited inside, but she also tried to see the keycode, so maybe she isn’t just there because she has a crush on him. She wants to get in either way. I think Tracey may be the one who Mr. Todd says has ‘got the job.’

I don’t believe the timeline of these scenes, and it is clear that something appeared in the box even before Sam was employed. Plus, even though the elevator can be clearly heard inside the room, Sam didn’t hear the guard leave. So, I suspect the guard went down as Tracey came up, meaning they passed each other. Everything about these two scenes, and the fact that they occurred near the beginning of the part 1/2 ‘film’, leads me to believe they are integral.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Sam and Tracey again, and if these early sequences and the creature escaping into the world, don’t actually occur somewhere near the end of the story.

Question from Joel Bocko: How does Twin Peaks: The Return fit into the pattern/evolution of Lynch’s body of work?

Answered by Sezin Koehler: This is a great question. Thank you, Joel. (And hey there, Twitter Buddy!) As someone who’s been a fan of Lynch’s work for 30 years — I first saw DUNE when I was 8 and was obsessed with it — The Return feels like the purest and most distilled version of Lynch yet. If it’s true he will retire after this, this swan song will be the most epic of any filmmaker and arguably in film history. To have 18 hours to paint a masterwork of visual media was not just a dream come true for us long-time Lynch and Twin Peaks fans, but also for Lynch as an artist. Where does The Return fit in with the evolution of his body of work? This is his supreme creation.

With a few exceptions, Lynch’s work has tackled exposing the seething underbelly of white America and particularly in middle-class contexts. Through Twin Peaks he’s helped shift public perceptions of pathologies like domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, drug addiction and trafficking, gun violence, sexual exploitation, and other social problems out of minority and urban contexts into suburban ones. It was groundbreaking in the 1990s, and in The Return, it’s even clearer. I’m really looking forward to seeing how The Return comes together in the end. Since Lynch tends to set off series of emotional bombs in the last minutes of his art, I predict there’ll be something nuclear about The Return’s finale.

Question from @clowngay Been thinking a lot about the Woodsmen and wonder how much they may be correlated to Mr. Lanterman or Margaret? Any thoughts?

Answered by John Bernardy: I used to assume the Woodsman was a singular creature and most likely Sam Lanterman, but that’s all changed now. Now, I think they probably more correlate to the loggers who died in that Twin Peaks fire in the early 1900s, though I also think they may just take a form easiest for their viewers to understand (in a memory-masking way). I wish I had something more definitive, but I bet any money that we’ll never get concrete information on what they’re all about and the fun will be in the hypothesizing just like we’re doing now.

Question from @greatwoods_dcw: Was it the ‘mother of abominations’ that re-birthed bob and will she be summoned into the woods at blue pine lodge. Is she symbolized by the black circle with horns that Sheriff Truman is warned that he doesn’t want to ever know per Hawk’s living map?

Answered by Gisela: This question is one of the big ones, and there are many interpretations. For me, each theory that I’ve seen or had in my own mind is followed by another bunch of questions. I’ll answer without going too deep into any rabbit hole, and my answer will be speculations – naturally so, since the short objective answer to this question would be the good old boring ”We just don’t know that yet”.

The very term ”Mother of abominations” and its relation to Twin Peaks will likely only be understood by those of us who read The Secret History Of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost, and although I absolutely think everyone should have read it by now, I know that’s not the case. So to only explain the very basics, here they are (p. 259):

In the novel, Jack Parsons (the rocket engineer, occult practitioner and follower of Aleister Crowley, who founded the sex magick religion of Thelema) allegedly tried to summon ”the goddess Babalon”, known as ”the Mother of Abominations” by performing occult ceremonies near White Sands, New Mexico in the year 1947.

This is, of course, the same area where the first atomic bomb Trinity was tested two years prior. Since we know that electricity and fire are very important in the Twin Peaks mythos, and both of them are manifestations of high amounts of energy, it’s not far fetched to speculate that yes, the massive energy that is released by an atomic bomb could surely cause all sorts of cracks in time and space for entities to ”slip through”.

In Part 8, we saw a figure similar to the entity in the glass box in New York. So first of all: are they the same? Personally, I don’t think they are. They are similar and possibly related, but they seem different. So is the Experiment, as it is credited in part 8, the ”Mother of abominations”? Maybe. The narrative suggests it might be, since most people interpret the birth/rebirth/appearance/reappearance (depending on your way of theorizing) of BOB seems to take place in relation to the blast of the Trinity atomic bomb. Maybe even within that very blast. In my article ”The Good, the Bad and the Bomb – Alchemy continues, and beyond” (LINK) I expanded further on whether BOB actually came from the Experiment, or managed to ”hitch a ride” with the rest of the eggs due to the crack in the fifth dimension, in lack of a better description, that opened up with the atomic blast.

But is the symbol the same as the Experiment entity? That’s another, maybe larger topic. I’m neither convinced or ready to throw the thought away yet. But I made two interpretations of the symbol on this site so far, and from different standpoints altogether. One alchemical (”Twin Peaks and Alchemy”) where I read the symbol as the Taurus sign, which in alchemy represents the highest level of enlightenment and spiritual power of the mind. In the other one, while interpreting Hawk’s map (LINK to ”Analyzing Hawk’s map), I mentioned the Native American ”god of violent death”, Ta’xet. It is also possible, of course, that the symbol does represent the Experiment, whether it is the ”Mother of Abominations” or not – or something different altogether.

Lastly: Will we see the Experiment again, summoned, as you asked, to the Ghostwood forest area, Glastonbury Grove or the Blue Pine Mt.? It sounds amazing and terrifying all at once, but let us just wait and see. Will we even get the answer to the enigma of the symbol now seen in Briggs’ note, Mr. C’s card and on Hawk’s map? If we don’t, I won’t feel let down. In the words of The Archivist’s opening statement of The Secret History Of Twin Peaks:

“…mystery is the most essential ingredient of life, for the following reason: mystery creates wonder, which leads to curiosity, which in turn provides the ground for our desire to understand who and what we truly are.”

Question from: @greatwoods_dcw: Could Dougie’s wedding ring have been planted by Mr. C to draw Gordon and Albert to Vegas for assassination?

Answered by Sophia: Most definitely maybe. Mr. C seems to be dropping hints to draw Gordon and Albert to Las Vegas, while simultaneously making it so that Gordon and Albert don’t know that he is the one leading them there. He has gotten Diane under his thumb and seems to be using her as a pawn to help lead the team to Vegas for a giant FBI family reunion. Is Janey-E really Diane’s half-sister, or was she instructed by Mr. C to say that? If she was instructed by Mr. C to say that, are Albert and Gordon aware of those instructions by monitoring her text messages? Is Mr. C aware that Albert and Gordon are monitoring her text messages, and thus further manipulating them by making them believe they are one step ahead? Mr. C wants Gordon and Albert in Vegas, and most likely not to enjoy a cup of hot coffee and warm cherry pie together. If it is for assassination, I can only hope that the Real Coop is there to snap back into ninja FBI agent mode and save the day.

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